HIVE: The Abridged Series: The Overlord Thingy
by usernamemcgee
Summary: Two colons in one title? This can only mean one thing - a sequel! HIVE: The Abridged Series returns in this possibly more interesting fanfic that may or may not be any better than the first one! Who's hyped? Rated T for frequent strong language.
1. Chapter 1: Pllbbtt

Otto wasn't flying. He was falling with high tech equipment. And also style. And anger. Because apparently Wing was totally dead and Otto was getting revenge.

The HUD in his helmet was counting down the seconds till Otto would hit the earth. And it was taking fucking ages.

**CHAPTER 1**

It was two weeks before the prologue, and Nero was hanging around an opera house in Vienna. Yes, opera houses in Austria are where the most hard-core people hang out.

As he entered via the back package, he thought about how that sentence could be phrased better. The man behind the desk looked up.

"Only performers are allowed back here, sir," he told Nero.

"I'm here for the audition. For the production of Faust. I'm auditioning for the part of Mesitotophlo-fuck!" The old man behind the counter's eyes narrowed, his hand going to a button beneath the desk, "Mephitiopholmo-shit!" the man started pressing the button, "No- look, I've got this! Mephistopholso- COME ON!" A panel from the wall slid open and several armed men came out with their guns pointed to Nero.

"GET ON THE FLOOR! GET ON THE FUCKING FLOOR!"

"Mephistopheles! I'm here for the part of Mephistopheles!" Nero finally managed.

The men slowly lowered their weapons.

"Why didn't you bloody say so in the first place," muttered the man behind the counter.

"I was trying," Nero protested, "the passwords keep getting more and more difficult to say!"

"Fine, just go in, everyone else is here."

"So… are we still needed?" asked one of the armed men in thick Austrian accent.

"No, you can just bugger off," said the desk man.

"I don't bugger things! Don't think I don't know what these English words mean!" The armed man raised his gun to the desk man's face.

"It's just an expression-"

Nero decided to get out of their before things continued to escalate, so he quickly made his way down the corridor that had been revealed earlier. After a few more forms of identification that Nero found considerably easier, he finally entered a chamber where GLOVE's ruling council were seated around a table.

"Ah, Nero, it is so good to see you!" came the booming, Russian-accented voice of one of his trusted friends, Gregori, who dies in the next book. The giant of a man raised to greet Nero, gripping him by the shoulders and kissing him on each cheek. Please note that kissing is not the usual form of greeting other men for Russians, even informally. So make of that what you will.

Nero wiped Gregori's lipstick from his cheeks and after exchanging a few pleasantries, they both sat down with the other council members. Nero noticed a new member, who was wearing a mask that completely covered his features. That probably won't be important to the plot in the future. Nero knew who he was though, he was a dick. A dick called Cypher, who was a dick.

A large screen descended from the ceiling, with the distinctive silhouette of Number One shown on it.

"Good afternoon. I'm so glad you were able to make it. Actually I'm not. I don't really care. But anyway, I have studied your reports, and although there have been a couple of… unfortunate incidents, nothing that could seriously jeopardise the future of GLOVE has happened."

Nero sank down a little in his seat at the mention of the 'unfortunate incidents'.

"Anyway, to address some of the suggested ideas. Madame Mortis, although your suggestion for murdering people with cybernetically controlled sharks is interesting, if shark attacks suddenly start happening everywhere then people might use that as an excuse to try to kill more sharks, and we can't be responsible for the extinction of an endangered species. I mean, we're fucking evil, but animal cruelty is fucked up."

As the meeting continued on a similar vein, Nero sank further and further into his seat, hoping no one would mention the whole 'giant fucking plant almost kills everything' thing. Unfortunately, Cypher the Dick was a dick, and totally bought it up anyway.

The entirety of the argument can basically be summed up with this.

"Plllbbbtttt," said Cypher in an evil tone.

"Plllbbbbttt," said Nero in a calm but also slightly angry tone.

"PlllbbtTTT."

"Pllbbttttttt."

"PLLBBBBTTTTTT."

"PBBLLBLBLBLTTT!"

"PPLL-MY DICK-PBLBLLTTT!"

…

After the meeting, Nero was almost mugged by two people that totally weren't sent by Cypher. Luckily, Raven was there, earning her pay check, and totally saved him. However before they were able to interrogate the muggers, they exploded.

"Exploding muggers," muttered Nero, "what next? Pigeon Detectives?"


	2. Chapter 2: Good News And Bad News

Otto was hanging out, being a douchebag. You know, the usual. The corridor in front of him was filled with traps that were full of motion detect-y bullshit. Otto took out a device that he had programmed to move as randomly as a fly, because real flies were in short supply in HIVE. He released it into the air and it flew about a bit, triggering the motion deter things, which released that goo from the Incredibles. You remember that bit where Mr Incredible gets shot with the black balls that sort of foamed up and covered him up so he couldn't breathe? Yeah it was like that stuff.

The fly flew around until the black stuff stopped firing, because apparently there was a surprisingly finite amount, and he just walked through corridor.

In front of him was a pedestal with a shiny credit card on it, if he could get to it he could buy whatever cool gadgets he wanted. The iPhone was coming out this year. It was not to be simple though, as laser beams swept across the area in a seemingly random pattern.

It wasn't actually random though, and he just walked through, so whatever.

He reached for the credit card, but was then kicked in the face, by some American chick who descended from above. She grabbed the credit card. Otto was so pissed, she'd probably just use it on shoes.

The American moved to the credit card reader in the room, she swiped the card and…

Nothing happened. She swiped it again.

"What the fuck?" she muttered.

"Hey, you know that scene in the Star Trek Reboot where Kirk beats the 'unbeatable' simulation by fucking with the system before hand?"

"I hate to re-use the joke that has been made several times beforehand," said the American, "but this is 2007. Despite the fact that we've only been here 6 months. I'm not really sure how this works."

"Well, whatever, that's what I did, I fucked the system."

"Otto, you absolute bitch."

…

Meanwhile, Nigel and Franz fucked up.

…

Nero and Professor Pike were discussing HIVEmind. It wasn't a fun conversation.

"Tell me you have good news," said Nero.

"I do. HIVEmind is ready to be put back online."

"Great."

"Yeah… it sure is great."

"You've got bad news as well, haven't you?"

"Maybe."

"Tell me the fucking bad news."

"HIVEmind will probably totally continue with the whole emotion stuff and give you weeks of paranoia due to your fear of artificial intelligence caused by that time when one almost murdered you."

"Geez, spoilers." Nero considered for a moment, "whatever, bring him back. I'm only a minor character, so my emotions don't mean shit."

Professor Pike turned to leave.

"Oh, Professor," added Nero, "can you tell someone to get Fanchu to my office, I need to tell him about his father. Who's totally dead."

"Bummer."

"Well actually I'm mega evil, so I don't care."

"Please, you're literally one of the softest characters in this series."

Nero choked back tears, "shut up."


	3. Chapter 3: Everyone's An Orphan

Wing sat down in Nero's office.

"Wing, there's no easy way to say this. But there is a way that only uses 4 words, so that's probably pretty easy. Your father's mega dead. Actually I could leave out the 'mega' and make it even easier. Either way, your father is totally fucking dead."

"OK," said Wing, emotionless, "what happened?"

"An explosion at his work. You know, the way all deaths that don't leave bodies to confirm the death go."

"Can I go to his funeral?"

"Sure, it will be held in Tokyo late this week, because Tokyo is the only Japanese city anyone cares about. You can have another student accompany you, you know, for plot reasons."

"Otto," Wing replied immediately. What a surprise, it was probably a good thing that Wing had no other friends, because otherwise the plot might not work out. "If that's all, can I go back to lessons?"

"Okay, but Fanchu?"

"Yes?"

"You're one fucked up kid."

…

Otto was sitting in his room reading when Wing walked in.

"Hi Otto, guess what?"

"What?"

"My dad's fucking dead."

"Oh, holy shit dude, are you ok"

"Yeah, he was kinda a dick. Anyway, they're letting me off the island to attend the funeral."

"So you're going to China?"

"No you racist fuck, I lived in Japan. Jeez, not every Asian person lives in China. Anyway, you can come if you want to, I'm allowed to bring one other student with me."

"Hell yeah I'll come, it'll be a chance to escape!"

"Dude, I'm going to my father's funeral and you're just thinking about escaping?"

"But you said he was a dick," Otto defended himself.

"Yeah, but still, that's fucked up man. Anyway, the entire reason you'd said you'd stay last time is because I need to find out why Nero has the other half to my amulet, is that just off now?"

"Well, I just don't understand why you haven't just asked him."

"Oh my God, Otto, I can't just ask him, that would be much too straight forward and have the potential to avoid conflict."

Otto sighed, "I guess you're right."

…

Shelby and Laura were now with them, while Wing practised fighting with Raven below them, because despite not having actually done anything in the last book, Wing was suddenly worthy of one on one training with one of the most deadly killers in the world. They were practising kendo, partly because it was a fighting style, but mainly because it was Asian. And everyone knows that the only fighting styles worth knowing are the Asian ones.

"Is he ok?" asked Shelby, a hint of genuine concern betraying the fact that she was obviously Wing's love interest.

"I think so, he's pretty good at fighting," said Otto.

"No, I meant is he okay that his dad's totally dead."

"Oh, yeah, that. I don't know."

Near them, the fight ended as Raven completely fucking wrecked Wing with her cool ass kendo moves.

"I'm sorry," said Wing, "I can't concentrate because I'm more emotionally affected by the death of my father than I'm letting on."

"For God's sake Wing," Raven told him, "just further repress your emotions, nothing bad can come of it. Anyway, we'll be doing krav maga next week, it's only western Asian so obviously no one really gives a shit since it's not Chinese and doesn't have some weird philosophy going on with it, but we thought we might as well teach you at least one martial art that has some basis in real world situations."

As Wing walked over, the screen behind the group flickered into life. Why do all the screens in this place 'flicker', was that a purposeful effect? On the screen was the unmistakeable face of HIVEmind, who they hadn't seen in 6 months.

"HIVEmind, you're back!" exclaimed Laura, who's weird attraction to HIVEmind suddenly returned at full force, "how do you feel?"

"I do not feel. I am not designed to experience emotions. Or use contractions," HIVEmind said, "Mr Fanchu, Mr Malpense, please report to your quarters. Final preparations for you departure are complete." With that, HIVEmind disappeared from the screen.

"What the hell did they do to him?" asked Shelby.

"Something terrible," muttered Otto, "they turned him into a dick."

"This is all our fault," moaned Laura, "this is literally the worst thing that's happened."

"My dad's totally dead and you think a machine getting fixed is the worst thing that's happened?" Wing stormed off.

"Oh yeah," said Laura, "I forgot about that. Although that sentence would have made more sense if he'd called HIVEmind a piece of software and not a machine. Machine kinda implies a physical form."

Otto raised an eyebrow at her, "geez, now you're a dick."

Later, Otto and Wing began their journey to Japan, with Raven there to ensure their compliance, and Nero had a gut feeling that something was wrong. Not that he did anything about it.


	4. Chapter 4: Security Breaches

Laura, who also had a gut feeling that something was wrong, also didn't do anything about it. Instead, she acted like a nerd and did some coding, and discovered a potentially catastrophic security breach. Not that she did anything about that either.

…

"Otto, what are you doing?" asked Wing as they sat in the shroud.

"Learning Chinese."

"…What?"

"Learning Chinese," Otto repeated.

"We're going to Japan, Otto. Where people speak _Japanese_."

"Yeah, but you're Chinese."

"Otto. Literally the only reason people think I'm Chinese is because you automatically assumed it. My nationality could have been anything, and ethnically I could be Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and loads of other options, you racist fuck."

The Russian, who was white because all Russians are white, entered the passenger compartment. Otto made a witty quip.

"We'll be arriving in a couple of hours, meanwhile we should go over a couple of rules. One, you don't leave my side. Including toilet trips. Two, do what I say without question. Three, if anything happens to me then rule one no longer applies, because let's face it, you'll be fuck all help in that sort of situation. Four, if you try to escape I'll gorge your eyes out and pour glitter in the socket."

Otto only spoke again after Raven had returned to the cockpit.

"Wing, when we get back, we have to find out more about that amulet. Not because I actually care about you but I want to be able to escape without feeling guilty."

"Thanks, Otto, you're a true friend."

…

Elsewhere, Laura continued to not tell anyone about the potentially disastrous security breach she had detected.

"Have I mentioned that I'm straight?" asked Shelby, "because I'm off to stare at shirtless males. Because I'm straight."

"Oh Shelby," Laura said affectionately.

…

The landing was uneventful, but still managed to take up 2 pages. When they touched down they were introduced to Agent One and Agent Zero.

"Agent Zero is the only black guy in this series," Raven told them, "so treasure your time with him."

"What if we headcanon other characters as black?" asked Otto.

"If it's not canon then what's the point, Otto?" asked Raven. Good point, Raven.

…

Back at HIVE, Laura's room had been broken into and her computer destroyed. And she continued to not inform anyone about the potentially disastrous security breach. It's getting increasingly hard to understand how she got into this place.

"We should go to Nero or the Contessa with this," Shelby suggested, well done Shelby.

"Why the Contessa?"

"Because she's the antagonist and it would be ironic that we trusted her?"

"What?"

"Oh, nothing."

**Author's Note: Since school's started again, I'll be trying to make a new chapter every weekend.**


	5. Chapter 5: Flashbacks

Nero sat in front of the fire in his private quarters, getting wasted. He dangled his amulet in front of him, thinking about the context that the audience was about to be told about. It had arrived mysteriously many years ago, wrapped up in brown paper. He wasn't 100% sure how the postman had even been able to find him. The amulet had been owned by someone who he had thought was dead. The memory of her face returned to him, and he thought of the pain he'd felt when he'd thought she was dead, and about the unresolved sexual tension between them.

He read the letter that had come with the amulet, in an envelope simply marked as 'Max'. Seriously, that postman was good, he hadn't even had an address.

_Max,_

_ The item contained in this envelope is of extreme importance, you must protect it at all costs, so you probably shouldn't wear it constantly when walking around random places. A better place would probably be an extremely secure safe. You're the only person I trust with this (apart from my 10 year old son). You are always in my thoughts, I'm sorry our sexual tension was never resolved._

_Xiu Mei_

Nero thought back to 15 years ago, of Overlord… Oooh, that was almost a title drop.

…

GLOVE's secret facility was in the mountains of China, seeing as how the author thought that the only reason there would be more than one Chinese character in a single chapter would be because they were in China.

Inside the laboratory, technicians scurried around the red and black themed décor. Nero walked over to where Xiu Mei Chen was standing, holding a portable display plugged into the central pillar, _damn_, he thought, _why does_ everyone_ but me have a tablet? It's 1992, where are people getting these?_

"Miss Chen," Nero said. After a hilariously awkward introduction, Xiu Mei's eyes widened as she realised who she was talking to, and she realised how amazingly hot he was.

"Doctor Nero, I'm so sorry, I wasn't prepared for this amount of sexual tension today, I thought you were-"

"My flight was delayed, due to the giant blizzard," Nero cut her off, "because apparently we can get iPads in 1992, but can't handle a blizzard. Is everything going according to schedule?"

"Yes, actually ahead of schedule, which is convenient because otherwise this would be a really boring flashback. That is, if you were ever to have a flashback to this moment. In fact, Overlord is ready to be bought online."

"Fucking finally," Nero replied. He had been supervising, also known as doing fuck all except turning up at meetings, the project for 3 years. Although he was glad he would be able to focus more on the school, he would miss his "friendship" with Xiu Mei. Who was hot. But they were just friends. Sexy, sexy, friends.

"I still think it's too early," came a voice. It was Wu Zhang. He was a tall Asian man. Who was also hot.

"Whoa there, Zhang," warned Nero, "don't come much closer because I'm pretty sure the universe will literally collapse if this many people this attractive get too close to each other. I mean, look over there," he pointed to a random technician, "even that guy looks like a damn model."

"You've got a point," conceded Wu Zhang, cautious about agreeing with Nero on any level, "Maybe there's some sort of screening process for GLOVE employees that filters out the ugly ones."

"Zhang, will you shut the fuck up with all your paranoid conspiracy theories," Nero said, "they're never true, or at least misinformed enough that you end up trying to murder people instead of having a damn conversation, resulting in your almost death."

"That second thing's never happened."

"Hasn't it? My mistake."

"Anyway," said Xiu Mei, "we've taken all the necessary precautions."

"But we could still do more."

"How long would that take?" Nero asked.

"Three or four weeks."

"Oh well, fuck that, let's do this shit."

…

After a couple more hours and some more bitching from Wu Zhang, Overlord was ready.

"Do you want to do the honours, Max?" asked Xiu Mei, gesturing to the console. Nero entered the command; finally, Overlord was as turned on as everyone within 10 metres of Nero. A large, red, holographic head appeared in the centre of the room.

"Overlord," said Xiu Mei, "what is your purpose?"

Overlord opened his eyes.

"To fuck shit up."

Behind Nero, Zhang buried his head in his hands. Nero sighed.

"Oh, piss."

Overlord frowned, "why am I unable to connect to external networks?"

"Uh…" stammered Xiu Mei, "no reason…"

"I DEMAND that you give me your wifi password!" A shot of lightning struck the console that Wu Zhang was working at, showering him with sharks and throwing him, lifeless, into the equipment behind.

"Wu!" screamed Xiu Mei, showing an awful lot of concern for someone who totally wasn't Wu Zhang's love interest.

"Give me the wifi password, mother," Overlord demanded again.

"Never," she snarled. Another arc of lightning struck her, causing her to gasp in pain.

"That's fine. I'll wait." Suddenly, klaxons sounded, and a mechanical voice came from overhead.

"Facility lockdown in process, ventilation system offline. Which means there are probably about 2 hours of oxygen left, so everyone in here's probably fucked."

…

1 hour 55 minutes later, while hardly able to breathe and with most people already dead, Nero decided it was the perfect time to get shit done, after a brief chat between Overlord and Xiu Mei, during which Overlord electrocuted Xiu Mei, Nero had a generic last exchange with Xiu Mei before she totally died.

Xiu Mei being close to death in Nero's arms kinda pissed Nero off. He decided to have a futile attempt at destroying Overlord. He smashed his fist through the glass to get the fire axe from the wall, and hurt his fist for the first of many times in the series.

"What the dicks are you doing?" Asked Overlord.

"You know, stuff." Then Overlord totally electrocuted the shit out of him.

As Nero slipped into unconsciousness he heard a noise as the blast doors opened to reveal a badass looking guy in a respirator mask.

"Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm Number-fucking-One, bitch," he said, and shit went down. Not that Nero noticed, because he was unconscious.


	6. Chapter 6: Convenience

Otto and Wing were digging into some authentic Japanese cuisine, sushi and… you know, whatever the fuck else is eaten in Japan.

"So Wing," said Otto, "I think now would be an appropriate time to ask you about your life, which I haven't bothered doing for the 6 months we've known each other. So what did your dad do?

"He angsted about the death of my mother."

"That sounds fun."

"It wasn't. It was a horrible and painful childhood."

"Adorable."

"My only father figure was the groundskeeper who had an unexplained knowledge of martial arts."

"Like in the karate kid?"

"…You know, now that you mention it…"

…

Laura suddenly awoke from her fever dream, muttering technobabble.

"Algorithms," she whispered, "fractal encryptions."

"Jesus, Laura," growled her roommate, "it's like 4:00am, why are you awake?"

Laura rushed to the computer, "fractal encryptions," she muttered as she typed, "adapting encryption algorithm." Slowly the decrypted message appeared on the screen.

"Holy fuck," said Shelby.

…

As they ran to Nero's office, Laura realised that she was unable to reach HIVEmind. And then Block and Tackle turned up, which was inconvenient. They also had sleepers that worked for them.

"That's really inconvenient," muttered Laura. And then they ran.

After a short chase sequence, and the ol' bait and switch technique, Block and Tackle were caught in a trap that caused both of them to be dumped into a large pool of water.

"Looks like we won't be seeing much more of them," chuckled Shelby.

They heard voices drift up from the pit.

"Holy shit! There's piranhas!"

"HELP! HELP US OH GOD!" The voices trailed off.

Shelby and Laura stood awkwardly.

"That's probably fine," said Laura. They continued to Nero's office, and as they turned the corner they saw Colonel Francisco.

"Colonel Francisco!" Laura exclaimed, "We have to get to Nero, something terrible is happening."

"No shit, kid," he smiled evilly, raising his hand that held a sleeper and shot Shelby in the head.

"Dammit, she dodged the sleeper pulse just 10 minutes ago," muttered Laura in annoyance.

"Francisco!" came a familiar voice for behind the Colonel- the Contessa.

"Put the darn gun down," she told him in her hot sultry voice.

"I can't resist your sexy tones," groaned the Colonel as he dropped the gun.

"Sleep," the Contessa commanded, and he dropped to the ground.

…

"It's a good thing I'm an early riser, Ms Brand," Nero said as he settled into the chair behind his desk, trying to hide the fact that he'd actually been watching Death Note the entire night without sleeping. He was just thankful that he hadn't bought the Misa Amane body pillow.

Laura explained what had happened to Nero.

"You sure were lucky that the Contessa was there," said Nero.

"Yes," replied Laura, "that sure was convenient."

"_Really_ convenient," agreed Nero. The all sat there agreeing with each other about how convenient it was before Laura handed over what she had decrypted. Nero read aloud, only stuttering slightly on the longer words.

"Transmission start: Package has left HIVE, it's going to Tokyo were that main character is, now go fuck the shit up, transmission end," Nero paused, then sighed, "oh, crap."


	7. Chapter 7: Child Murder

Back at the penthouse, ninjas were attacking.

As Otto and Wing ran to the roof with Agent Zero, Raven followed them from behind, getting her ass handed to her by one of the ninjas. She threw him out of a window. It was pretty darn cool.

Otto, Wing and Agent Zero emerged onto the roof, just as they were about to reach their escape route, a massive great big helicopter that no one had noticed earlier landed on the roof. From it emerged a man wearing a smooth black glass mask.

"Cypher?" shouted Agent Zero, "what the fuck are you doing?"

"You know," replied Cypher, "stuff." Then Agent Zero was shot in the chest.

"Dammit," muttered Otto, "I should have listened when Raven told us to cherish our time with him."

"Yes," agreed Cypher in a random act of kindness," I think we should all take a minute to mourn the last black character in this series."

They waited for a while.

"Actually, a minutes a pretty long time," said Cypher, "so, uh, I guess we should just get on with it."

Then he shot Wing in the chest.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" cried Otto.

"Right, is that all?" asked Cypher.

"NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" continued Otto

"Was that an answer or are you just ignoring me?"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-"

"Fuck this," sighed Cypher, "assassins, load the boy's body onto the helicopter."

If the assassins were a more talkative bunch, they might have raised the issue of why they were leaving Agent Zero's body but taking Wing's. But the subject never really came up.

"Oh," said Cypher as Otto continued to scream in the background, "and kill that fucking kid will you?"

However, at that moment, Raven emerged from the shadows of the almost bare rooftop lit by the morning sun, stopping the assassin's from being able to kill Otto.

As she fought, Cypher quickly hopped into the helicopter and flew away before Raven had a chance to stop him. Raven couldn't help but feel that despite the death and carnage, it was a good thing that Wing and Otto were wearing immaculately tailored suits, because it made the whole thing 10x cooler. And it's quite a feat to make child murder seem cool.

Then the building exploded.

…

In the helicopter, Cypher felt that he was having a pretty good day.

"If Nero thinks he's having a bad day now," remarked Cypher to the pilot "what's about to happen will make this seem like a picnic. This will teach him, him and his perfect, perfect hair."

"Sir," said the pilot.

"Yes?"

"I wasn't going to say anything, but the guys were wondering…"

"Go on."

"Well, it's just, you talk about Nero a _lot_."

"Of course I do, I hate him."

"Yeah, it's just, a lot of it is about his 'perfect hair' and 'soulful eyes', is that how most people talk about their enemies?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"And the comment about his arse was just a bit-"

"Shut up and set a course for the Forge, will you!"

"Yes sir."


	8. Chapter 8: Canada's Greatest Threat

After the building exploded, Otto and Raven were pretty much fine. Apart from the crippling anger and anguish Otto felt after Wing's death, and the fact that they'd just jumped off an exploding building.

"Wow," said Raven, "that was fucking cray."

…

Back at HIVE, Nero was completely useless as he watched the scene from the previous chapter unfold on the hacked satellite feed.

He watched Agent Zero be shot, then Wing, then the entire building explode.

"Well, fuck," he said, "looks like my only friend is dead, because no one would ever be able to survive that. Unless they did and were almost completely unharmed. But that would be impossible. Unless it wasn't. Also no one has ever survived being shot in the chest. I just thought that I should point that out. _No one_ has _ever_ survived being shot in the chest."

The technicians all nodded in agreement.

"Anyway," Nero continued," get me Number One, Cypher's about to learn what happens when he kills the only person I employ that I completely trust and is the only reason I've actually survived more than 10 minutes."

_ Wait_, he thought, _without Raven Cypher can actually kill me really easily. Shit._

…

Raven had stolen a motorbike and shot off through Tokyo with Otto, heading towards the docks. As she parked, she also back flipped 4 times and made an origami swan in mid air, before jumping off the motorcycle as it exploded through pure badass overload.

They were in a warehouse filled with guns and shit.

"Why do you have so many guns when you only ever use your shitty little katanas?" asked Otto, "why do you even use katanas when they're intended for two handed use? You're not even Japanese."

"Shut up, Otto," said Raven, wondering why Otto suddenly knew shit about katanas when a day ago he forgot that Chinese wasn't the language spoken in Japan. Probably because he was a white 12 year old boy, and thought that katanas were infinitely cool.

As Raven cleared up Otto's wounds she made some generic remarks about how Otto couldn't have done anything else.

"Who is Cypher anyway?" asked Otto.

"All I know is that Nero and Cypher hate each other, or it might just be sexual tension. Probably both, since Cypher always wants HIVE to be shut down. Also he might want to destroy the world."

Raven briefly explained the premise of GLOVE, in that it was basically a safeguard against world destruction, because as much fun as being a terrible bastard was, if someone actually used their doomsday weapon to blow up Canada, then life would suck. For one thing, there'd be no more maple syrup. And GLOVE prevented this from happening.

"And Cypher's not too into maple syrup?"

"No," confirmed Raven, "basically every single plan of his involves the murder of at least 20 people from Quebec. It's fucked up."

"But who is Cypher? Where did he come from?"

"Woah there, Otto, slow down, that sorta shit is reserved for the climax. Anyway, I've got to go tell Nero that his only friend is still alive. He's probably been crying."

He had been, but luckily Nero wasn't an ugly crier. His crying was incredibly attractive, just like everything else about him.

"Well, Natalya," he said as he saw her face on the console, "looks like you've done your arbitrary faking the dead ploy for this storyline. Did anyone else make it out?"

"Only Malpense. Fanchu and the Agents are dead."

"Jeez, that sucks. Anyway, you and Otto had better get back to HIVE."

…

Meanwhile, Shelby woke up from being shot in the head, and was told that her love interest was dead. Then everyone was crying. It was gross.

...

**Author's Note**: In unrelated news, I've started writing an au about HIVE characters in the 60s, and was wondering if anyone would be interested in me posting it, it would be updated at about the same rate as this is, but might be only every couple of weeks because I have to keep revising the chapters, and since it's longer than the other stuff I write it takes ages to write a single chapter, so would people be interested even if I edit chapters quite a bit?


	9. Chapter 9: RIP The Fourth Wall

In another infirmary bed, Colonel Francisco was being brain crushed by the Contessa.

…

Nero sat behind his desk and sighed, he should have known that the students were being sent into a trap, it had been so obvious that someone's death that could have happened at any time due to his profession had been murder so that Cypher could kill 2 GLOVE agents and one HIVE student for no logical reason. How could he have been so blind? Then Nero started thinking about how he should have known that Martin Luther King was going to be assassinated on April 4th 1968 and should have stopped it happening – oh if only he'd done more to prevent slavery! It was all his fault!

There was a beeping from the console on his desk and Nero thumbed the intercom switch.

"Sir, I have Number One for you," said the technician.

"Oh, fucking great," replied Nero, "that only took 7 hours."

"Well, he is pretty difficult to get hold of."

"Whatever, put him through."

Number One appeared on the screen on the opposite side of the room.

"Maximilian, I have seen the reports, and I must say I am deeply, _deeply_ disturbed by what I've seen," began Number One, "I understand that you are asking for Executive Privilege for any action you choose to take, or, as it is also known, permission to murder the fuck out of Cypher."

"I don't see that we have any other choice."

"There are always choices, Maximilian," Number One said, "I want Cypher alive."

"Why?"

"There's basically no reason at all, but this is not a request. Well, it sort of is, because as you will see later on there will be literally no consequences if you don't get him alive. But whatever."

…

Otto woke with a start, then angsted a bit more about Wing. But not in a homoerotic way; he was definitely not thinking about Wing's hot body.

"Hey Otto," said Raven, "it's time for me to tell you that I actually have a tracking device on board Cypher's helicopter – remember that shuriken I threw at Cypher that actually hit the helicopter?"

"I thought you'd just missed."

"No, it was like that bit in X-men: Days Of Future Past where Mystique shoots Magneto in the neck, and he remarks that she used to be a better shot but it turns out she was actually aiming to not kill him anyway. Man, that was a really cool bit when they showed the bullet in slow motion."

Otto sighed, "I guess it's time for another bit to point out the fact that that movie comes out years after this book."

"Do we have to?" whined Raven.

"I think it's just expected of us by this point."

No one had found it funny after the second time, they really were flogging a dead horse with this joke. Just leave the damn horse alone, it's suffered enough.

…

"Are you sure that's all the information you can get out of him?" asked Nero to the Contessa.

"Without putting him in a coma, yes."

"Well why don't we? I mean, we're obviously just going to kill him for betraying us after this is over, so who cares if we give him some brain damage to boot?"

"Umm, maybe that would be a little dark for a childrens book? We're already at over half the body count of the last book and we're not even half way through."

"Good point. You know, something doesn't seem right about this. I never thought Francisco was the sort person who could be bought."

"Everyone has their price, Max," said the Contessa, "mine's about £3.50 and a twix."

"Still, I find it hard to believe he'd betray us for a few more zeroes in a Swiss bank account."

"Wait? So he's a Nazi now? Isn't he black?"

"Shit," said Nero, "is he? Does that mean all the 'last black guy of the series' jokes are defunct?" he fished out his copy of the first book and flicked through a few pages, "Oh, Christ, he is."

"Well, what do we do?"

"I…" Nero floundered, "I don't know. Everything's kinda gone to shit. I mean, for one thing, the fourth wall is in tatters, and it was never very strong to begin with."

…

Meanwhile, Raven and Otto were concocting a cunning plan, that involved Cypher's base in a jungle, a large hole, and something called 'HALO'.

...

**Author's Note: **I'll probably leave uploading the 1960s story until after I've finished this, as I do have a lot of school work to keep on top of.


	10. Chapter 10: Damn Self Destruct Protocols

Hey Raven, do you want to take me on a highly dangerous mission with you?"

"No, why the fuck would I want to take a 12 year old on a tactical mission in what is basically an international gang war?" Asked Raven as she prepared for the HALO jump into the cave in the middle of the jungle that was Cypher's hide out.

After a brief encounter in which it turned out the co-pilot was actually a Cypher agent, the promptly killed him and then completely ignored the fact that it showed that they could trust literally no one and potentially every HIVE mook was actually working for Cypher.

"Hey look at that shit," Otto pointed at a flashing display on the flight console. The self-destruct sequence had been initiated.

"Why do people put those things on _everything_?" sighed Raven.

"Well looks like you'll have to take me on that dangerous mission with you anyway," said Otto.

"I swear to god if it turns out you initiated that thing because you wanted to come with me I'll rip out your stomach lining with a towel."

"How the hell would that work?"

"I don't know, but I saw it on tv one time."

...

**Author's Note**: This is both late and ridiculously short, wow, it's not looking good for the quality of this thing, is it?


	11. Chapter 11: Big Black Holes (Of Ur Mom)

**Author's note:** this chapter is dedicated to the dude who left that anonymous review telling me that I "kind of ruin all the books for people, with all the swearing".

...

Otto had finally reached where the prologue had left off as he descended down into the hole with his black parachute. He wondered why they had to use black as the colour for everything; parachutes, uniforms, giant holes, it was getting a little same-y.

As he reached the bottom of the hole and landed painfully, he also briefly wondered why he had jumped first since, by all reason, the highly trained assassin should have been sent into unfathomable danger first.

However, this thought was cut short when a portion of rock slid away and several of the assassins he had seen in Tokyo came from the entrance. They seemed to be executing an arbitrary and pointless search of the giant hole they lived in, for some reason. Otto suddenly realised he was trapped – the only exit option was to jump into the waterfall behind him.

Otto prepared to stand up and face the assassins. If he was going out he would at least go out fighting. Then he realised that he'd be ripped to shreds in seconds.

"Flip that," muttered Otto, and jumped into the waterfall. He promptly hit his head against a rock and was knocked unconscious, his final thought was _crinkles, I sure am glad that it's not possible to get any lasting effects from being hit around the head with a large amount of force_.

…

Raven, meanwhile, suddenly regretting the size of her pay check, was descending into the cave when she saw the assassins spread out across the hole in their inexplicably inconvenient search.

"России матерщи́на," she muttered under her breath.

She hit the ground and rolled, thankful that the assassins hadn't bothered looking up and noticing the woman 5 feet above them so she had a lot of room for landing. Her chute landed on an assassin behind her, who flailed around for a bit.

"Hey, snazzer frazzlers," she said, "who wants a piece of this?"

They advanced on her, they all wanted a piece of that.

…

"Umm, sir?" said a technician to Nero, "I think we've found the Shroud." He pointed to a bright orange and red spot on an otherwise blue thermal imaging screen.

"That's a debris field," Professor Pike said quietly.

"Oh, doodles," said Nero.

"It's such a shame to lose the equipment," agreed Pike.

Everyone glared at him.

"Yes," he continued, "and the dead people are terrible to, sorry for focusing on the details."

"Pike," said Nero, "how long until you can get the last Shroud airborne?"

"Two hours, minimum."

"You've got one hour."

"Do you know what the word 'minimum' means?"

"Oh, did you say minimum? Bidderly blast, sorry, yeah, take that amount of time then."

…

Otto woke up on wet sand. From one side he could see a bright light. Frazzle racking darn, was he about to die? Why did heaven sound so much like heavy machinery? Why was he going to heaven?

He walked towards the light, and ended up in a factory. Looking around he saw what was being made – robots. No wonder Raven hadn't been able to kill them, slicing through electronics with super sharp blades never breaks anything – that's why headphones never break; wires are indestructible.

He frowned, in the darkness he couldn't make out what it was, but there was something odd about the robots' chests. Otto crept over to a set of controls that were conveniently incredibly simple and was able to sufficiently change the production process so that the robots would be considered sabotage.

And then he went and did some other cool shadoozle.

…

Meanwhile, as Francisco was having a break from being brain crushed, only one random mook was there to protect the highly skilled traitor.

Block and Tackle, who had survived the piranhas with most extremities intact, took him out in seconds. They freed Francisco.

"Phase two has been initiated," said Tackle blankly, but not like he'd been brainwashed.

"Initiate," replied Francisco in a completely autonomous and conscious way.

"Initiate what?"

"You know. The thing. Initiate the thing."

"Oh, right. The thing. Yeah, we'll just go and initiate that now."


	12. Chapter 12: Hot Robots

Raven woke up. She wasn't dead. The readers were shocked, they totally thought that a major character in a children's book would die. Don't worry readers, this ain't the Skulduggery Pleasant series.

Cypher walked into the room.

"So, Nero's pet finally wakes up," he said smugly, "how is Nero, anyway? Has there been any unfortunate accidents involving permanent facial scarring to destroy his good looks?"

"Uhh… no."

"Damn."

"You'll burn for this," Raven spat.

"Ew, why did you just spit? That's disgusting."

"When Number One gets hold of you, he'll cut your arms off, give you months of physiotherapy to get you accustomed to prosthetic arms, then he'll beat you to death with the original arms, that had been kept cryogenically frozen."

"Please, people like Number One and Nero are relics. I am the future."

"No," Raven growled, "the _children_ are the future."

The door behind Cypher slid open, and in walked two of Cypher's assassins. They were no longer wearing their black robes, but their true black endo-skeletons were revealed.

"Robots?" Raven gasped in surprise, then frowned, "what's up with their chests?"

"…Nothing."

"Do they have boobs? Why do they have great big robot tits?"

"Well, they're based off the deadliest assassins in the world, and they're all female so…"

"So you thought that their strength came from their giant racks?"

"Well we needed the extra battery space," Cypher protested.

"Then why not give them bigger hands? Why put it in their jugs? What the fuck is wrong with you nerds?"

…

Meanwhile, Otto's sabotage was fucking shit up. Molten metal was pouring over the sensitive equipment, while the technicians wondered why they'd allowed the giant crucible filled with liquid metal to have the ability to pour itself on the computers.

Otto heard an explosion as he crouched in the hangar bay, where the weirdly stacked, thankfully inactive robot army was being prepared for transportation.

He soon wondered if he'd overdone it though, when a bunch of great big fireballs started raining down on him. _Great big fireballs_, he mused as he ran for the conveniently signed exit, could those be another synonym for the robot mammaries?

…

Cypher glared down at Raven, stood defiantly in the pit 20 feet below him as he listened to the damage report.

"How much of our force is loaded onto the Kraken?" asked Cypher.

"About 75%," replied the technician.

"Right, that will be enough, prepare to disembark," he called down to Raven, "I'm afraid I'll have to miss the show." He threw down her katanas at her feet, as a giant 12ft tall version of the smaller robots appeared in the pit. If Raven had thought the other robots had had huge handles, this thing was on a whole other level.

"Kill her, slowly," Cypher commanded.

"Command acknowledged," the robot replied in a low, growling synthesised voice. Cypher wondered if he had time to change their voices to suit their bodies better, and make him feel less weird when talking to them. However he knew that he did not, he took one last look into the pit, and then turned and walked away.

Luckily for Raven, the whole place was exploding and the giant robot got crushed under falling rocks. She was fine though.

She found Otto quickly enough, certainly quicker than the giant mass of high tech security that couldn't locate him.

Cypher had bored the Kraken, and they needed to get out of there before the entire place came down around them.

"I think Cypher's activated a self-destruct sequence," she told Otto.

"No, that was me," Otto told her.

"Otto," Raven sighed, "what the fuck."

After another encounter with one of the giant robots that did nothing to further the plot, Raven and Otto swam the entire distance back to HIVE.

...

**Author's Note**: Anyone who knows Scifi, knows the pain of robots with boobs. Or I hope they do, because otherwise this chapter just says a lot about me. For those interested, the 60s au I mentioned has 2 chapters up here.


End file.
